7. SUMMARY OF LIFE AT LAUTENBURG

Four times a week I gave Duke Joachim his lessons, two of history, one

of philosophy and one of literature. For this purpose I went to his room

in the right wing of the palace. You will remember that his father

occupied the middle portion, while the left wing was reserved

exclusively for the Grand Duchess Aurora. The walls of Duke Joachim's

study are hung with the best German maps made by Kiepert himself. There

are two portraits, one of the Grand Duke, and the other of his first

wife, _née_ Countess von Tepwitz, a worthy Bavarian with a Luther's

cross, who died three years ago. Duke Joachim is her living image.

You couldn't have a more tractable pupil than this young German duke. He

knows a good deal already, but unfortunately it's all in the same class.

I shouldn't be at all surprised if the State of Lautenburg-Detmold

lapses to the imperial crown on the death of the Grand Duke

Frederick-Augustus.

Those who have always had all they want will probably bridle at the

suggestion that a life with every material comfort is enough for

happiness. Nevertheless, I was thoroughly happy. I had nothing but my

professional duties to worry about. Two or three books, unknown over

here, practically performed them for me.

I was very happy, I repeat. Lunch with the Grand Duke was still a treat

in store, but I had already dined three times with Colonel von Wendel.

His wife took a great fancy to me. I lent her several books I had really

intended for the Grand Duchess. She was a kindly soul, and, besides, it

was just as well to be on good terms with the Colonel.

I generally lunched with Cyrus Beck, Kessel, and the staff. Little Hagen

came every now and then. When he did, the others chuckled maliciously,

and said that the Grand Duchess must have let him out for the day. In

the evening every one vanished. Most of them had friends in the town. I

usually stayed behind with the professor, and sometimes, not always, the

taciturn Kessel. Cyrus Beck then monopolized the conversation with a

recital of his woes. His pupil made no progress. Besides, tutoring

wasn't his job! The Grand Duke Rudolph, now, _did_ know how to treat a

professor. He was a scholar!

I was given to understand that as a geographer he had scarcely a rival.

Kessel, finishing his liqueur, broke in calmly:

"A geographer who didn't understand the handling of a field gun."

Cyrus retorted in scorn:

"Then you prefer the present Grand Duke?"

"I never knew His Highness the Grand Duke Rudolph," replied Kessel,

unruffled. "I only know that the first duty of a Grand Duke is to _be_ a

Grand Duke, which means perfect familiarity with artillery, heavy and

light, so that geographers can work in peace and safety."

The odd thing is that the professor poured out his complaints to Kessel,

of whom he stood in visible awe, rather than to me, a Frenchman. I tell

you the loyalty of these folk is beyond belief. We in France are never

happy except when at loggerheads. But _their_ habit of mind, backed by

the Imperial Police, who are admirably organized, makes them sheep,

compared to which Panurge's flock was imaginative and refractory.

In the daytime my principal amusement was strolling in Lautenburg. The

splendid German uniforms delighted me, though I had moments of dismay

over that prodigious display of discipline. Twice a week the band of the

182nd played in the Königsplatz, opposite the theatre. I liked the

charming _gaucherie_ of the group of girls I passed. They recalled and

exemplified the truth of the old cavalry General von Dewitz's remarks to

his aide-de-camp:

"These girls are thoroughbreds, my boy, a real treat to watch! None of

your faked demi-women, but mothers, real mothers. I'd answer for whole

generations of them. Just look at that buxom wench down there! There's

red cheeks for you, and what a stride! A yard if it's an inch! What a

treat for an old soldier like me. I like looking at 'em!"[1]

I, too, liked "looking at 'em." The spectacle never failed to please,

and that utter docility, that abject acceptance of their destiny,

recalled the words of the French officers who passed through here into

captivity after the disaster at Sedan:

"_Priez une Allemande à s'asseoir. Elle se couchera._"

Night falls, a haze of purple and gold. Lights and noise herald the hour

of café and tavern. A flower-seller passes. I am to dine tonight at the

Colonel's. I must take Frau von Wendel a bunch of _Vergiss-mein-nicht_!...

[Footnote 1: W. Meyer-Forster: _Baron von Heidenstamm_. Part I. 1.]

III

ONE morning in December I was snugly ensconced by my big log fire,

preparing a lesson for the afternoon. There was a dry, cold snap in the

air, and the pale winter sun was dissolving, the night's mist in opal

drops on my windows.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Outside stood Otto, an ex-non-commissioned officer and head-butler, in

fact, the connecting link between the palace officials and the horde of

valets, workmen and supers whom he had under his orders. His white

shirt-front and round red face stood out sharply against the dark

background of the corridor. Behind him loomed two men bearing some

strange bundles.

"Excuse me, Herr Professor. I hope I am not disturbing you?"

"No, Otto. What is it?"

He came in, followed by the two men, who had their arms full of bunches

of flags.

"Tomorrow is the fête-day of the 7th Lautenburg Hussars, Herr

Professor. The town takes a holiday. We decorate the whole palace, and I

have come to arrange your three windows."

I looked out. The Königsplatz was, indeed, dotted with tiny figures

bustling about with the multifarious paraphernalia of public rejoicings,

tall poles, bunches of flags and streamers.

"Go ahead, by all means."

Very deliberately they set to work. Three huge shields, with the German

imperial standard between the white and red flag of Würtemberg and the

Lautenburg-Detmold banner (a golden leopard on a black and white ground)

were duly erected. The whole was then linked to the other windows by

festoons of enormous green garlands like laurel wreaths at

prize-givings.

Standing there supervising, Otto described to me the next day's

ceremony.

"It is always a very big affair, Herr Professor. Tonight the palace will

be lit up, and there will be a torchlight procession on the arrival of

His Majesty the King of Würtemberg and His Excellency General von

Eichhorn, who is representing His Majesty the Kaiser."

"Is the Kaiser represented at every regimental fête?"

"Not _all_, Herr Professor, but the 7th Hussars is not a regiment like

others. Its flag is decorated. Prince Eitel is a captain in it, and most

important of all, its colonel is Her Highness our Grand Duchess, the

Emperor's cousin. So you will realize ..."

"I realize, Otto, that it is going to be a very fine affair, and you

must have plenty to do."

"You are right, Herr Professor. We have finished now. Come on, you two.

We are very grateful for your kindness, Herr Professor."

I appreciated the turn of events which was to enable me to witness one

of these magnificent German ceremonies, even more when, about eleven

o'clock, a note came up from Major von Kessel. The Prince's tutor

informed me that his pupil was to accompany the Grand Duke at the

preliminary review of the garrison in the afternoon. He therefore

requested me to be good enough to postpone my lesson for a couple of

days.

At lunch, Doctor Cyrus Beck, more hoffmannesque than ever, came down

late in a state of great excitement. I wanted to get some further

information out of him.

"Here's a disgraceful thing," he burst out, enraged. "Have you read this

libelous stuff, sir?"

He held out _La Peau de Chagrin_.

"Libelous stuff?" I said in amazement.

"Yes, silly, libelous nonsense. It takes a frivolous Frenchman to treat

certain subjects with such levity. It is science itself that is

ridiculed here, sir. Just consider. You spend your life in the study of

two or three questions, break retorts, bum your face over crucibles, run

innumerable risks of being blown up and your laboratory with you--and

all that for a tomfool novelist to come along, and, in a few

contemptuous words, which he takes for eternal verities, tell you your

business and make you a public laughing-stock."

"I don't know what particular passage of _La Peau de Chagrin_ is

responsible for your recriminations," I said, "and I'm afraid, in any

case, I'm not competent to defend Balzac on this point. You should know,

however, that, generally speaking, he was extremely accurate. The

historical parts of his work are an important authority. I once heard a

good commercial lawyer say that his descriptions of César Birotteau's

bankruptcy and the sale of the Roguin property are masterpieces from the

legal point of view. Besides ..."

"Sir," he broke in with rising anger, "neither Law nor History has ever

claimed to be an exact science. A superficial intelligence like your

Balzac's can easily excel in them. But science, sir ..."

"My dear Herr Beck," I said, a little nettled, "if _La Peau de Chagrin_

can produce such an effect upon you, I wonder what you'll say when

you've read _La Recherche de l'Absolu_? It refers to a certain Balthazar

Claës, who, like you studies high matters and with the same wealth of

experience as yourself. It is possible that you might discover many

valuable suggestions there."

He was not quite certain whether to take me seriously or not; but

prudently wrote the title of the book on his cuff. Then his lips went to

his spoon, which, in the German fashion, never left the surface of his

soup.

"Are you going to the review tomorrow?" I asked.

I expected a formal negative, and my surprise was great when he told me

he would not fail to attend the ceremony.

"We have seats reserved in the Royal Stand," he said unctuously, "next

to the Corps Diplomatique."

I was very much tickled at the child-like delight of this barrack-room

savant at having an official place at a military ceremony. "What a world

of difference from our anti-militarist intellectuals," I thought,

without knowing for certain which of the two attitudes was the better.

The entire palace was in a state of extreme confusion. Officers in

full-dress uniform swarmed like ants. I met Kessel up to the eyes in it.

"The King arrives at nine o'clock," he said. "You should go to the

station. It will interest you. Meanwhile, if you like, you can watch the

review which the Grand Duke is holding at three o'clock on the

parade-ground."

I thanked him, but not wishing to take the gilt off the next day's

spectacle, and, if the truth must be told, feeling rather small and

absurd among all these folk in brilliant uniforms, I hid myself in the

library. There I began to jot down a few notes bearing on the young

Duke's next lesson on the history of Alexandrine Philosophy.

When I came out darkness had fallen, and I decided to go for a stroll in

the town. It was already illuminated. When I reached the middle of the

parade-ground I looked back, and the whole castle appeared before me in

a blaze of light. My childish pleasure in the coloured lights and fairy

lamps prevented me from noticing that the exhibition did not err on the

side of good taste. But in Germany there is always too much of

everything except that.

In the centre there was an enormous imperial eagle, ten yards high,

carried out in yellow lights. On the left the Würtemberg lion in red,

and on the right the Lautenburg lion in green. The difficulty of

distinguishing these animals with electric lamps had been a very serious

problem for the artist in charge, but in the end a fair measure of

success had been achieved.

A confused murmur of admiration rose from the shadowy groups about me.

At the far end of the parade-ground the Royal Stand was all ready for

the next day's review. The Hanover Strasse, the finest street in

Lautenburg, was thronged with people, who were walking up and down on

the pavements, as if impelled by some mechanical device. At a given

moment the barracks poured out a stream of uniforms. The red tunics of

the Lautenburg Hussars blended with the blue of the Detmold Dragoons and

the dark jackets of the infantrymen. Students who had come specially

from Hanover, flaunted their various caps and duelling scars with an

arrogance which vanished quickly whenever they passed an officer. Thanks

to the approach of Christmas, the brilliantly-lighted shop-fronts were

crammed with a mass of weird and fantastic wares, the childishness of

which was enough to make you weep. The provision stores were crammed

with geese absurdly decorated with the colours of the twenty-seven

German States. A goose adorned with the Rudolstadt blue was cheek by

jowl with a goose in Würtemberg red. The pork butchers exhibited

pyramids of sausages made in the shape of the most famous public

buildings in the Empire--the Reichstag, the Central Station at Berlin,

Cologne Cathedral, etc. But the masterpiece was a triumphal arch of

lard, with bas-reliefs in red jelly and an entablature of _foie gras_.

Girls strolled along in parties of three or four, arm in arm, modestly

lowering their eyes under the insolent stares of the officers.

I dined at the Lohengrin tavern, the largest and most ornate in

Lautenburg. You remember the roundabouts of our childhood. The part

reserved for the band and the old blear-eyed, tinsel-covered nag bears a

very striking resemblance to a fashionable German tavern. They are the

only places, I think, where people can smoke without inconvenience. The

clouds of tobacco smoke which rise to the ceiling suggest nothing so

much as a rabelaisian Walhalla. It was striking eight when yells of

"_Hoch_! _hoch_!" in the street brought the diners _en masse_ to the

door. Amid a forest of sabres a squadron of dragoons was on its way to

the station to act as guard of honour to the King of Würtemberg and

General von Eichhorn.

There was such a mob around the station that I gave up any idea of

trying to get in. It was from a corner of the Roon Strasse that I

managed to get a glimpse, through the hedge of dragoons, of the car in

which the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and the King of Würtemberg were

sitting opposite my pupil and General von Eichhorn.

I was absolutely deafened by the noise. From one café I had to flee in

terror of immediate asphyxiation. Students standing on the table

declaimed, sang and bawled out their slogans while tossing off the

contents of colossal pewter mugs. Under blinding electric standards in

the streets women, dressed in the fashion of 1900, with hats slanting

skywards and hopelessly drunk, mingled the eternal pan-German "_Hoch_!"

with suggestive invitations.

As I turned the corner of the Königsplatz, on my way back to the

castle, I passed by the officers' mess. For one second the bright window

revealed to me the pandemonium within. Through the thick curtain of

smoke I caught a glimpse of some thirty men, and, stretched on the table

among the flowers and pools of wine, two naked women.

* * * * * *

At eight o'clock Pastor Silbermann, at the _Tempel_ in the Siegstrasse,

and Monsignor Kreppel in the Cathedral, celebrated the offices of the

respective cults, to which the soldiers of the Catholic and Reformed

confessions were conducted in detachments. Then at ten o'clock came the

review.

The weather favoured the 7th Lautenburg Hussars. The sun shone bright

and cold. From the square you could see the black leaves, gripped by the

gentle westerly breeze, fall slowly from the castle trees into the

Melna. I have said before that from my room I could not see the

parade-ground where the review was to be held. But rising at daybreak I

was in time to watch the 182nd Prussian Infantry Regiment, of which two

companies had been told off for general police duties, crossing the

Königsplatz en route to its post. The immense throng filled my heart

with the joy of those who know that their seats are reserved.

At seven o'clock I was ready, although I had quite decided not to turn

out until much later, certainly not before the stands were half full. I

picked up some book and tried to read it, not stopping to analyse the

reasons for my growing excitement.

At nine o'clock the noise below became so marked and insistent that I

thought I could go down without looking absurd. How small and

insignificant I felt crossing the great square, the emptiness of which

was emphasized by the enormous crowd gathered round it, only kept within

bounds by a cordon of infantry with fixed bayonets. The stands were

three-quarters full when I arrived, and I should have had considerable

difficulty in finding my place if I hadn't seen a hat frantically waved

to attract my attention. It was Count de Marçais.

"You're next to me," said the obliging diplomat. "All the better. We can

chat while we're waiting."

Glad of an opportunity of impressing me, he told me the names of the

distinguished individuals around us: Count Bela, the Austro-Hungarian

Minister, almost swallowed up in furs and an astrakhan cap with a silver

aigrette; M. Nekludoff, the Russian Minister, in a very unassuming

frock-coat; Monsignor Kreppel, with his heavy gold cross on a purple

sash, and Rector Etlicher, of Kiel Academy.

Suddenly I pressed his arm. A most attractive young woman had just taken

her place in the first row of the stand immediately in front of us. She

might have been twenty or twenty-five. Dark, extremely smooth-skinned

and languid in her movements, she was wearing a long blue coat and skirt

edged with skunk. One of her arms hanging loosely by her side, ended in

one of those huge muffs so fashionable at that time. A toque of skunk

framed the heavy black coils of her hair.

She noticed Marçais and greeted him with a languid bow.

"Who is she?" I murmured.

"What," he said ecstatically. "You mean to say you don't know the Maid

of Honour, the Grand Duchess's inseparable confidante, Fräulein

Melusine von Graffenfried? What on earth have you been doing with your

time since you came?"

"What a beauty she is!" I said.

"She's a beauty all right! You're not the first to make _that_

discovery. But you'd better realize, my boy," he added, with a curious

sly glance, "that there's nothing doing. Besides, you'll forget her

existence when the Grand Duchess arrives. Meanwhile she'll do, won't

she ..."

Translating words into deeds he touched our beautiful neighbour gently

on the shoulder.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried, there are some things in the castle we

don't value as we should. Here is one of its residents, who has

not yet been presented to you and now solicits that honour. My

fellow-countryman, Monsieur Raoul Vignerte, tutor to His Highness Duke

Joachim."

The charming young woman turned round and gave me an angelic glance,

which, for some reason or other, reduced me to extreme confusion.

"Thank you, dear Count, for giving me an opportunity of knowing Monsieur

Vignerte otherwise than by reputation. Monsieur, let me hope we shall

meet again without having to wait for so special an occasion. But I'm

told you work so hard."

It was not the first time I was to learn how much more tactful

distinguished imbeciles are than people of reputed intelligence. Count

de Marçais gave me further proof of this when he answered for me:

"No offence meant, dear friend, but perhaps it is easier to gain

admittance to the castle library than to your affections!"

Melusine's eyelids quivered imperceptibly.

"No offence taken, I assure you," she rejoined, smiling. "Monsieur

Vignerte is a true scholar, and will tell you that the very best

libraries are those to which admission is most difficult. Isn't that so,

Herr Beck?" She added, turning to the old savant, who had just arrived

and was lost in astonishment at the troops concentrated at the two ends

of the parade-ground.

I admired the surpassing skill with which she turned a conversation

verging on delicate ground.

"You are unquestionably right, Fräulein," my old colleague hastened to

reply, with the utter ingenuousness of the man of learning. "Monsieur

Vignerte knows only too well that the whole library, manuscripts

included, is at his disposal."

"Hush!" said Fräulein von Graffenfried, turning round. "Here's the

King."

A group of horsemen had just appeared opposite us, on the other side of

the square, in the courtyard of the castle. There was immediately a

volley of sharp commands. Cavalry and infantry stiffened to attention.

With a noise like sheets of metal tearing, bayonets were fixed to the

muzzles of rifles. Three thousand swords flashed out, three thousand

tongues of lightning.

Trumpets and fifes began a slow march, a kind of summons to arms, very

sharp and strident, but quite in keeping with the keen December morning.

When it stopped, there burst out one wild universal cheer, solid,

raucous and prolonged, like the roll of a wave which never breaks.

The little group of horsemen advanced at the trot in the huge empty

square. The King of Würtemberg, in field-marshal's uniform, was in

front on a black horse. On his right was the Grand Duke

Frederick-Augustus, in general's uniform, very plain. On his left

General von Eichhorn displayed all the glories of the Great General

Staff. Close by was young Duke Joachim, looking very well in the blue

tunic of a lieutenant in the Detmold Dragoons.

Behind them came a display of the finest uniforms in the German Army: a

colossal officer of the White Cuirassiers; an officer of the Guard

Artillery in black and gold with crimson facings; grey Hussars, a green

Uhlan.

"Where's the Grand Duchess?" I murmured to Marçais.

"What! You call yourself an officer of the Reserve! Where do you expect

to find the colonel at a review? At the head of his regiment, of course.

Look, there's Colonel von Mudra of the 182nd. The review begins with his

regiment. He's the man just in front of the Staff. He will drop back

into line when his unit has been inspected."

At a gallop the Royal group passed between the companies of the

regiment, which smartly opened out for the manœuvre. The white and

black standards were lowered at their passage. Then came a sharp order

and the ranks closed up. It was the turn of the Detmold Dragoons.

Colonel von Becker, slim and straight, a fine figure in his blue tunic,

white gauntlets and black-spiked helmet with its silver eagle, rode up

to the King, whom he saluted with a broad sweep of his sabre, presenting

to him his superb regiment, a host of giants on motionless giant steeds.

This solid mass gave me such an impression of overwhelming force that I

involuntarily pressed Marçais' hand.

"H'm!" he murmured. "Our Cuirassiers and Spahis will have their work cut

out if it ever comes."

An order, passed down by the commanding officers, captains and

lieutenants, and the earth trembled beneath the hoofs of the 11th

Detmold Dragoons moving off by the right, behind the 182nd Infantry, to

take its place for the march past.

It was Marçais' turn to press my arm.

"Look!" he said.

In front of us, in the first row, Fräulein Melusine von Graffenfried

was leaning over the rail with a smile on her lips. Two riders were

advancing towards the King. One was little Hagen, rather pale and

plainly full of himself. He was riding eight or ten paces behind the

Colonel of the Lautenburg Hussars.

To tell the truth, I could not clearly distinguish the features of the

Grand Duchess Aurora. I could only see the outline of her slight form.

She was walking a little horse gorgeously caparisoned. Above her riding

skirt was the tunic of the Lautenburg Hussars, red with orange facings.

Her black kolbach reared its long gold cockade above her head.

She also presented arms to the King of Würtemberg, who, urging his

horse forward, bowed over her hand and kissed it. A tremendous cheer

went up from the crowd:

"_Hoch_ for the Grand Duchess! _Hoch_ for the King! _Hoch_ for the

Kaiser!"

Marçais touched Melusine gently on the arm.

"The Grand Duchess is a very placid Amazon today," he said.

"Do you think so?" replied the girl, shrugging her shoulders but not

turning round. "She had two bottles of 'Extra Dry' put in Taras-Bulba's

oats this morning. That explains everything."

"Taras-Bulba! Is that her horse?" I asked.

"Yes, a fearful little brute, hairy as a mat, you can see. She brought

him from the marshes of the Volga. He's ugly, vicious and obstinate.

She's absolutely the only person who can ride him. He tries to bite the

groom's face off, but she can do what she likes with him."

"Sh!" said Melusine. "Look!"

The Hussars were advancing at full trot to take their places behind the

Dragoons, who were drawn up behind the infantry.

With their backs to the stand and ourselves, the King of Würtemberg and

General von Eichhorn faced the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and Duke

Joachim, who, at the other end of the parade-ground, presented the

troops marching past. I have no bias in favour of the Prussian

goose-step, but I assure you that though we may mock at it in France, it

is remarkably appropriate to German military atmosphere.

The 182nd marched past in line of columns of companies. You could have

heard a pin drop. The six field artillery batteries followed at a

gallop, the copper bobs on their black helmets sparkling in the sun.

Then, by squads and keeping faultless alignment, the Detmold Dragoons

advanced, followed at a distance of two hundred yards or so by the

Lautenburg Hussars.

The Grand Duchess was between the two regiments. Little Hagen, stiller

than ever, looked in the seventh heaven. A feeling of mute hatred of the

man rose within me.

The march past was over. Whilst the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus and

Duke Joachim came over to join the King of Würtemberg and General von

Eichhorn in front of the stand, the two calvary regiments massed for the

final charge at the place the princes had just left.

"Look!" said Marçais to me. "You are going to see the Cossack style."

On the right was the blue mass, on the left the red, smaller. Twenty

paces in front of them two riders, almost side by side. Colonel von

Becker's great bay snorted. Taras-Bulba, quivering with suppressed

excitement, did not move.

Leaning forward, Melusine looked on, her gaze at once roving and rapt.

Two sabres flashed and immediately, with a deafening roar, the great

wave broke.

And now one horse was ahead--Taras-Bulba. How long would it last?

Possibly ten seconds, and then the wave, three thousand horses and three

thousand riders, stopped dead before the stands amid a rattle of oaths

and the jingling of stirrups. The earth seemed to open.

I shall never forget the sight. On the right Becker, leaning back in his

saddle, his horse rearing, saluted the sovereigns with his sword. On the

left was Taras-Bulba pawing the air.

Five or six yards away from me the Grand Duchess sat her prancing horse.

No pink glow on her pale face spoke of that breathless rush. Her huge

black kolbach entirely hid her hair. Her green eyes shone gloriously. A

Murat among Amazons, she held her sword raised above her head.

She smiled to us.

At that same moment a cry of admiring wonder broke from three throats.

Melusine von Graffenfried, Marçais and I had the glory of leading a

frantic burst of cheering.

Then Taras-Bulba fell back on his fore feet. With one hand Aurora von

Lautenburg patted his shaggy mane, while she extended the other to King

Albert, who kissed it again.

* * * * * *

An invitation card, handed to me by Ludwig when I returned to my rooms,

intimated that my presence was requested at the dinner to take place at

eight o'clock in the Great Gallery, in honour of His Majesty the King of

Würtemberg and His Excellency General von Eichhorn. Third table; place

23.

I spent the afternoon in my room, playing with some manuscript or other,

turning over pages, but not reading. At seven o'clock I went out into

the park. Two hours earlier I had heard the last strains of the hunting

horns, distant at first, die out in the ravine of the Melna. It was

there that the hunt, led by the King and the Grand Duchess, had

concluded.

The palace was a blaze of light, and through its lofty windows I could

see the great tables groaning beneath their load of flowers and glass.

Most of the high officials and all the Lautenburg officers had been

invited, and three hundred covers were laid at twelve tables.

I went in between a major of the Dragoons and the wife of a Court

Councillor, and neither of them said a single word to me during the

meal. The band of the 182nd played in the Council Chamber in the

intervals between the courses.

I could not see the Grand Duchess, the King, or the Dukes, as the top

table was completely hidden from me by a forest of flowers.

In the hubbub of toasts and champagne I slipped out, and went through

the Council Chamber to the Great Hall, hoping to get a good view of the

entrance of the royalties. A charming voice drew me from the well of my

reflections:

"Well, Monsieur Vignerte, why so solitary?"

I was alone in the great room with Fräulein von Graffenfried.

"What about yourself, Fräulein?"

"I? Oh, that's a different matter. The Grand Duchess has asked me to

have a look round before the others come in. The waiters are so stupid.

She is most anxious that the flowers should be well arranged."

I looked around at the tasteful floral display about us. Purple iris

alternated with yellow roses, larger and finer than anything I have ever

seen, before or since.

"These flowers are from her own home," Melusine explained; "iris from

the Volga and roses from Daghestan. She has a waggon-load sent every

month, as she thinks the flowers here very poor. They are beautiful,

aren't they?" she added, with her face buried in a large bunch.

"Not more so than she!" I murmured, not knowing what I said.

Melusine gave me a smiling glance. She was dressed in a gown of ivory

satin under a tunic of tulle embroidered with iridescent pearls. No

jewels, save for a necklace of pink pearls round her smooth throat.

Her whole personality, elegant, languid and perfumed, spoke in that

smile.

"Yes, she is," was all she said.

Then with sudden irony:

"So it was her flowers that suggested herself? I shall tell her."

"I beg of you, Fräulein ..."

"No, no! I want you to know her. You must come and see us. We get bored,

you know, seeing no one but little Hagen. He isn't always amusing."

"He is in love with her, I suppose," I said, drawing close up to her.

Melusine laughed.

"He's quite tiresome enough for that."

"And she?"

"Monsieur Vignerte," said Melusine, smiling again. "You go from one

extreme to the other, the depths of modesty to the heights of

indiscretion. Don't you realize that, to say the least, your questions

are not very flattering to me?"

She leaned forward, almost touching me. Her black hair brushed my cheek.

"I think you found me much better-looking this morning before seeing

her, didn't you?" she whispered.

She took my arm with an imperious gesture.

"Well, you can look at her now."

With a clatter of swords and spurs the procession entered the Great Hall

just as a thousand lights were turned on at once.

* * * * * *

German Court functions have all the incomparable splendour that the

magnificent imperial uniforms give them. I was almost blinded by the

amazing display of blue, red and black tunics, bedecked with fur and

sparkling with gold.

The hedge of Lautenburg Hussars presented swords.

The Grand Duchess Aurora came first on the arm of the King of

Würtemberg.

A draped gown of dark green velvet, amazingly _décolleté_, left one

shoulder absolutely bare. Behind her trailed her long train, with a

wonderful design in silver embroidery.

On her right hand she had a single diamond set in platinum, on the left

an emerald set in a circle of brilliants.

I had not seen her hair in the morning, but now I beheld that cloud of

tawny gold, fashioned in great coils round her head, beneath a gold-lace

cap surmounted by a strange barbaric tiara of emeralds.

For one second her eyes met mine. I had an intuition that what she read

there did not displease her. I was probably the only human being in that

etiquette-ridden concourse who dared gaze thus frankly at that woman.

Do you remember Gustave Moreau's _Fée aux Griffons_? You will recall

the fantastic creature in a vivid blue landscape--that colour is less

intense than the green of Aurora of Lautenburg's eyes. The picture will

give you a dim idea of the Grand Duchess.

There was the same ethereal atmosphere, the same haunting mystery of

outline. Melusine, exquisite, even unnerving as she was, seemed almost

commonplace beside that Titania.

What Moreau's picture does not explain is the blending of ingenuousness

and resolution which is the whole charm of this princess. She has

something of the northern Creole, at once listless and impulsive, and

again something of snow in sunshine, sparkling and hard on the surface,

soft in substance.

Her waist, perhaps a little too slender, is rather high. You _knew_ how

delicately lovely her waist would have been if she had cared to lace it

in, for the velvet gown moulded the form in a way that is only possible

when there is direct contact with the flesh beneath. The thought that

that form could emerge from its sheath like a cold, pure lily sent the

blood surging to one's brain.

Among all those faces, on which wine had already begun to leave its

purple traces, that pale statue, half unrobed, was miraculously white

and pure. Her lips were rouged, her eyes darkened, and, to tell the

truth, her nails were unnaturally pink. But you felt she made light of

these adventitious aids on which others rely for beauty. You could

imagine her smiling at resorting to them. She only uses them to show

that she can just as well dispense with them.

The smile which hovered on her pale face was set, artificial. A slave to

etiquette, she wore the appropriate official mien. Any one who watched

her closely could the better observe an occasional emotion, dead at

birth, which for a brief moment disturbed the grave, self-imposed mask.

I knew that such an emotion must focus as many impulses as the colours

in a prism. I felt that if I ever came to know Her Highness better, I

should perhaps succeed in analysing them; but in the meantime that

glimpse revealed two elements with unfailing certainty--irony and ennui.

Was this gentle, listless creature, indeed, the Amazon of the morning? I

preferred her then. The bare, white shoulder hurt me, and I wanted a

heavy ermine cloak to throw over it. There were a dozen around her. Oh!

I knew that she was their sovereign, and that their glances, in her

presence, were little more than mechanical. But if they had not thought

themselves observed what reserve would they have shown?

And who, in Heaven's name, is that little red Hussar, lurking down there

behind the flowers and casting covetous glances at that fair

shoulder?... Hence, clown! Go back to your tame, fat German women, with

their bulging arms and diabolo figures. She is not of your race. She is

not for you, lout! I hate you, yet I envy you. I envy your scarlet

tunic, your yellow facings, your gold tinsel, your lieutenant's rank in

the 7th Hussars, which, when all else fails, is a bond between you and

your soul-stirring Colonel. I could then approach her and proffer, as

you do now, my compliments on the display of the morning.

With her face almost buried in the bouquet of irises she held to her

nostrils, she thanked, in a low voice, the officers who congratulated

her.

"Oh, no! You exaggerate. Taras-Bulba deserves all the praise. I'm always

amazed at the way you keep up with him on your chargers. Compared with

him the animals here are like brewers' horses."

Was I wrong, or could she really if she had wished have spoken German

with less of a foreign accent?

Behind a screen of plants on the left the band of the 182nd struck up a

waltz. The ball began.

"We are keeping out the dancers, gentlemen. Go and find your partners.

They will be getting angry with me. Please take me to my place, Count,"

she said, taking General von Eichhorn's arm.

These Germans, male and female, waltzed with that grave, concentrated

resolution that characterizes them. Spurs clinked merrily, and the

beautiful imperial colours mingled under the lights into one fascinating

kaleidoscope.

"Monsieur Vignerte, you are not dancing!"

"It is only because I'm such a poor performer, Fräulein. Besides, a

black coat cuts a poor figure among all these uniforms."

"That's no reason," replied Melusine. "Why, there's good Frau von Wendel

who will go very well with your clothes. You must ask her."

"If I _must_ dance, I should prefer it to be with you."

"I'm afraid I haven't time. My business is to wander round and look

after the wallflowers and more bashful dancers. Let me take your arm.

You can accompany me."

A pretty woman on my arm gave me the confidence I lacked.

"Fräulein von Graffenfried! Monsieur Vignerte!" The voice of Marçais.

The last word in elegance, he was sitting near the Grand Duchess. Great

Heavens! He beckoned to me to go up.

"Can't we ever get hold of you?" he said, laughing. "Here, monsieur."

He presented me to the Grand Duchess.

"It was partly for your sake, Madame, that I brought Monsieur Vignerte

here. But you seem in no hurry to use the gifts we offer."

She replied casually:

"I? My wish is nothing better than to know Monsieur Vignerte. I am told

he is charming. You must forgive me, monsieur, if I say 'I am told.' I

have hitherto had no chance of judging for myself. You work very hard, I

understand."

The same words as Melusine had used. Oh, the shame of it! Was I _always_

to wear the pedant's gown? Was I always to be the man who "worked very

hard," I, whose nights were passed in dreams of a voluptuousness that

none suspected?

I was going to reply. I think I was going to tell that haughty creature

the plain truth. But she rose.

"Excuse me! I must dance--at any rate, once! Herr von Hagen," she

called.

The little red Hussar was there. He came forward, humble but radiant. I

knew a day would come when I should box his ears!

A space had been cleared on the floor. The Grand Duchess Aurora's dance

seemed to be a maëlstrom from which the dancers turned aside lest they

be drawn in. They waltzed at first the slow German waltz in three time.

Then the measure quickened, changing to two beats in the bar. It was no

longer even the boston, but a wild, harmonious whirling.

A murmur of admiration went up. The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus looked

on with a smile which was almost a smile of triumph.

It was not Hagen, elegant and accomplished though he was, who set the

pace, but the tall green and white form. Round and round she went,

listless as ever. Hagen let himself be carried along. An ecstatic flush

suffused his fair, boyish face. He was as clay in the hands of his

Sovereign. Red, green, red, green, then a blur. The complementary

colours appeared. They turned, turned, turned...

In France we should have clapped.

She went back to her place a drooping lily. As she adjusted her right

shoulder-strap, she let fall the lovely bouquet of purple iris which she

had been carrying. I rushed forward and picked it up.

"Thank you, monsieur," she said casually. Then, this time voluntarily,

she dropped them again.

Good Lord! they were already faded.

* * * * * *

I went back to my room, opened the window, and, gazing out at the cold

stars, drank the dregs of humiliation. I understood. She felt a hopeless

antipathy to me. What was it? What had I done? I didn't know.

The outcast's motto came back to me: "To work!"

I could still hear the distant strains of the band. Limousines crossed

the Königsplatz with their glaring headlights. Their occupants were

happier than I, for they had seen her since I had.

To work!

IV

WELL, Raoul Vignerte! What are you after now? What's this new craze of

yours? Why! only a few weeks ago you didn't know in the morning where

your dinner was coming from. Your acme of happiness was to be certain of

the next day's meals. Here you are certain not only of tomorrow's, but

next month's, and even for years to come. You have only to devote

yourself to your work--work, the only thing that brings no regret. And

with all this you are unhappy, not merely unhappy, but actually

miserable. You are more miserable than on the day when you arrived at

the Gare d'Orsay, turning out your pockets to see if you could find a

proper tip for the porter without changing your one gold piece, which,

once broken into, would vanish all too quickly. What is the cause of

your suffering? Your cursed imagination. Isn't it because you know that

henceforth all the beauties of Paris, all the treasures of France, could

not satiate the longings within you? She! a beauty, a Grand Duchess!

Poor fool! You called yourself an anti-romanticist and used to make fun

of the Romantic Drama. Yet here you are, when it suits your purpose,

repeating all unconsciously the adventure of Ruy Blas, lackey to

Monseigneur the Marquis de Finlas. Is this what your gods, Le Play and

Auguste Comte, have brought you to? You are a funny creature! Why, the

queen of your dreams is even further from you than from that little red

Hussar with his elegant indolence, rank, and a coat-of-arms to back

him....

I got to work and gradually found that the dust of the library chased

away my envy, hatred and regret. I accustomed myself to the idea that I

should never set foot in the left wing of the palace. I liked to think

that she dawdled out life there with her Melusine, and that I was never

made for such a place. I deliberately intended to take away from my

visit to Lautenburg everything I thought could help or amuse me. In two

years' time I should have saved five or six thousand francs and

collected material for three or four books. I would return to Paris, and

with my methodical industry and the memory of what I had missed, would

make her mine. After all, Paris was better than this scornful, barbaric

beauty!

Professor Thierry had drawn up an excellent plan of campaign, and the

further I explored the library, the more I appreciated his wisdom. The

history of the German dynasties contemporary with Louis XIV. sheds a

wonderful light on his reign, throwing its natural attraction into

greater relief. The single preoccupation of German princelings towards

the close of the seventeenth century was to imitate the King of France,

the usual method being to secure the services of artists, or pupils of

artists, who had worked for him. But while every French seigneur made a

point of having a particular artist to work exclusively for him, it is

amusing to see how the Germans usually clubbed together to share the

expense of commissioning some particular painter, sculptor, or gardener.

It reminds one of the way in which poor Parisian families club together

to buy a sack of vegetables or a whole lamb at the _Halles_.

I discovered among the archives most of the estimates of the French

painters and sculptors who worked not merely for the Dukes of Lautenburg

and Detmold, but also for the Dukes of Lüneburg-Celle and the Electors

of Hanover. Ernout executed most of the statuary groups in the gardens.

Gourvil, a pupil at La Quintinie, laid them out. Lesigne, a pupil of

Lebrun, was commissioned to do the frescoes. A Catalan, Giroud, was in

charge of the iron and locksmith's work. Zeyer, a painter in lacquer and

instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, has left some charming work on

the doors of the Herrenhausen Palace at Hanover and of the Palace of

Lautenburg.

Their accounts were hotly disputed by the stewards of these Sovereigns,

and in many cases the princes themselves did not hesitate to suggest

reductions in their own hands. I examined with great interest a long

bill of Giroud's, exhibited by that artist before a Hanover tribunal in

1690, to justify his charges for the installation of a number of secret

springs at the Herrenhausen. Duke Ernest-Augustus, the future Elector,

failed to establish his case for reduction. At that date, at any rate,

Hanover had judges who judged.

I had decided in principle to confine my researches to the influence of

France on the Courts of Germany in the seventeenth century. I had at my

disposal a mass of documents, more than enough for Professor Thierry's

purpose and comprising material for a book of my own. It is to that

Zeyer, lacquer artist and instructor to Princess Sophie-Dorothea, that I

owe the extension of my original plan. I found among his accounts a

transcript of his evidence before the Commission of Enquiry which tried

the unhappy Hanoverian sovereign. He is thus responsible for the events

which were to follow.

Vignerte stopped, thought a moment and then put

an unexpected question.

"Do you know the dramatic story of Count Philip Christopher of

Königsmark?"

For answer I repeated the following lines:

_The Count of Königsmark once loved a queen,

Became the queen's own lover, so folk say,

In her own room, censed with fresh-burnt verbene

When nights were young as when they died to-day._

_What idle thoughts she poured into thy mind

Who could declare, what idle tales she told

As beaded bluebells all the while she twined

With hearts' ease in her locks of russet gold._

"The author of those lines," said Vignerte, "had read Blaze de Bury's

book. It is the only useful work in French on the tragedy. Do you

remember it?"

"I'm afraid I've forgotten most of it," I confessed.

"I shall have to give you the story in some detail. It will not explain

my own adventure. It makes it even more extraordinary."

You will certainly remember what was the general situation in the State

of Hanover in 1680. Its sovereign was Ernest-Augustus, a profligate

versed in all the arts of statesmanship, who had been successively

Bishop of Osnabrück, and Duke and Elector of Hanover. His brother,

George-William, was Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Ernest-Augustus had a

son, George: George-William a daughter, Sophie-Dorothea.

The ambitions of Ernest-Augustus had a double goal. His primary aim was

to recover his brother's estates for his family. There was only one

method--to marry George to Sophie-Dorothea. The marriage took place in

1682 when the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg was only sixteen.

The other ambition of Ernest-Augustus soared higher. It was the crown of

England. Fortune favoured him. One after another the twelve children of

Queen Anne were gathered by death. Ernest-Augustus was not to see the

fulfilment of his work--he died in 1698--but his son George reaped its

fruits. On the death of Queen Anne in 1714 he mounted the throne of

Great Britain as George I. He mounted it alone. Eighteen years before he

had separated from his wife as the result of an infamous intrigue, and

when her husband assumed the crown of England the wretched

Sophie-Dorothea was dragging out her weary days in the Castle of Ahlden,

more prison than palace.

You must forgive me for this dry summary of facts. It is essential I

should be clear.

The story of Sophie-Dorothea's divorce is the story of the assassination

of Count Philip-Christopher von Königsmark.

A member of one of the highest and most ancient Swedish families, friend

of the Prince-Elector of Saxony, as dark and handsome as Sophie-Dorothea

was fair and lovely, Count Philip and the Duchess of Brunswick-Lüneburg

had known each other at Celle in their childhood when they were

affianced in the ingenuous manner of the times. Their ways had parted,

however, and Philip had led the adventurous life of a gallant Swedish

free-lance at the Courts of James II. and Louis XIV., at Dresden and

Venice.

Was Sophie-Dorothea's marriage a spur to his old love or a blow to his

vanity? Whatever the reason, the fact remains that one fine morning

Hanover witnessed the arrival of Count Philip von Königsmark.

The Court of the Elector was a den of debauch, a garbage-heap on which

Sophie-Dorothea, fair lily, was slowly fading. Betrayed by a husband

whom she had ever despised, compelled to tolerate, as gracefully as she

could, the virago Countess von Platen, the abject favourite of

Ernest-Augustus, she spent her weary life in solitude, preoccupied

solely with the education of her two children--a son who was destined

for the throne of England, and a daughter who was one day to be Queen of

Prussia.

Then Königsmark arrived at Hanover and the drama opened.

Count Philip had come to take his revenge by winning back the heart of

Sophie-Dorothea. But before he had even set eyes on her Countess von

Platen had her eye on _him_. He deemed it wise not to flout the

all-powerful favourite, but he was obliged to go to great lengths in

order to soothe the susceptibilities of that woman--a Messalina and Lady

Macbeth in one. He went, in fact, to the furthest limit. Once

compromised, she would be in his power--but it was he who found himself

in her clutches.

Then began the idyll of Philip von Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea. The

gloomy Herrenhausen Palace witnessed their ephemeral loves.

Sophie-Dorothea's first notion was that the gallant Count had come to

Hanover only to see for himself the misery and desertion of her who had

been compelled by her father's wishes to marry another. His practically

open liaison with Countess von Platen added fresh torture to her lot.

But one morning, going with her lady-in-waiting to the little wood in

the Herrenhausen park where she sat out every day, she spied the Count

just moving off. A note was left on the seat, with these lines, in the

style of Benserade:

In other days a fickle swain was I;

Upon the green from lass to lass

At any hour I'd lightly pass;

Only a change, this pleased my eye

But since I've seen my fairest Sylvia's face,

From her my love no more can range,

I'll make one last supreme exchange.

From her I'll never change my place.

Was Sophie-Dorothea Königsmark's mistress? I still doubt it, even after

reading their correspondence in the archives of La Gardie. But I must

freely confess that it must have been quite impossible to doubt it in so

corrupt a Court as Hanover, where it was common knowledge that Duke

George's wife received the handsome Swedish adventurer every evening in

her apartments.

The vindictive Countess von Platen was the last to know that she was the

laughing-stock of the whole palace, but that day the doom of both Count

and Duchess was sealed.

On the evening of Saturday, July 1st, 1694, Königsmark, returning to

his room, found on his table a note with a few words scribbled in

pencil:

Princess Sophie-Dorothea will expect Count Königsmark this evening,

after ten.

This note, a forgery imitating Sophie-Dorothea's handwriting, was the

work of Countess von Platen. Königsmark, unsuspecting and brave as a

lion, kept the appointment. He left the Princess at two in the morning.

Next morning Sophie-Dorothea saw from her balcony two men furtively

wandering in the park as if they had lost something. They were Count

Philip's servants searching for their master. He was never to be seen

again, by them or any one else.

There you have the tragedy, my friend. There remains the _dénouement_,

the divorce of Sophie-Dorothea. That unhappy young woman of twenty-eight

lived in a world of enemies. She wished to leave her husband, who was a

nightmare to her, but was prevented by the wishes of her father, who had

forced a marriage on her for political reasons. A love-sick girl could

not be allowed to upset the pretty scheme which had the throne of

England as its possible goal. The unhappy creature refused to lend

herself to it. She was dangerous for other reasons. The Swedish Count

had relations. And so she was duly divorced after a trial in which she

suffered every outrage and humiliation. Her children were taken out of

her care, and ultimately the wife of the King of England, once more

plain Duchess, died a prisoner in her Castle at Ahlden in 1726. Then

only did the parental fury relent. The vaults of the castle in which she

was born were opened to her corpse. There, in the obscurest corner of

the crypt of the keep of Celle, is a humble coffin, bearing no

inscription. It contains the mortal remains of Sophie-Dorothea, wife of

the Elector George-Lonis of Hanover, King of England under the name of

George I.

I have outlined, as briefly as I could, the story of Philip von

Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea. I need hardly say that many points in

the tragedy have never yet been cleared up. The assassination of the

Count is undoubtedly the most obscure incident in the whole affair.

Witnesses agree that it was Countess von Platen who set the trap in

which he perished. Ten hired assassins pierced him with their swords and

the horrible Countess herself dealt him the final blow. But what was

done with the corpse? This is where the mystery begins.

Opinions are divided. Was the Count, as some say, buried in a grave in

the park? Or, according to another version which I have reasons to

believe the true one, was his corpse covered with quick-lime and thrown

under the stone floor of the room known as the "Knights' Hall"? Or was

it simply cast into the latrines which communicated with the Lüne

flowing at the foot of the castle, as the author of the "Secret

History"[2] would have us believe? Was his the corpse, as Horace Walpole

asserts, which was discovered twenty years later under the floor of a

retiring-room in the Herrenhausen? I only put these problems to explain

to you, though to me it still remains inexplicable, my feverish

resolution to solve them. You may well imagine that the mystery was more

vivid and intriguing to me than to any other man, partly because of the

situation at the palace, with its many points of resemblance to that in

which the tragedy took place, and partly because of the priceless

material at my disposal in the ducal library.

The most valuable authority till then available was the correspondence

of Königsmark and Sophie-Dorothea, to be found in the archives of the

La Gardie Library at Loeberod in Sweden. This correspondence was

discovered by Professor Palmblad, who published extracts from it at

Upsala in 1851. When Professor Thierry in taking leave of me had

referred me to Palmblad's work, he hoped that at Lautenburg I should be

able to discover a portion of the correspondence, which wandered all

over Germany before finding a definite home at Loeberod. I was, however,

unable to find anything, though I had compensation for my disappointment

in another and most fruitful discovery.

You remember I spoke of Sophie-Dorothea's daughter a short time ago. She

married the Crown Prince of Prussia, the future "Drill-Sergeant King,"

Frederick I. "A harsh and tyrannical husband," as Blaze de Bury writes,

"his first act, on mounting the throne, was to forbid his wife formally

to hold any sort of communication with the prisoner of Ahlden. It was

only when Sophie-Dorothea had inherited from her mother a revenue of

twenty thousand crowns, a very considerable sum in those days, that the

royal miser began to soften towards her, though his sudden concern was

purely mercenary, being based solely on his wife's possible interest in

the inheritance, an interest which the celebrated jurisconsult,

Thomasius, had laboured to establish."[3]

The Queen of Prussia was the meekest of women, but, urged on secretly by

her confessor, she had never ceased to reproach herself for not having

boldly taken her captive mother's part, convinced as she was of her

innocence. She began to take advantage of her forbidding husband's

better moments to collect the material on which to base proceedings to

clear her character. Unfortunately Sophie-Dorothea died in 1726. This

did not deter her royal daughter from pursuing her labour of love.

Thanks to her resolution and the learned assistance of the jurisconsult

Thomasius already mentioned, an enormous dossier, comprising some twelve

hundred documents, was prepared. It established beyond doubt

Sophie-Dorothea's innocence and Countess von Platen's ignominy. This

monument of filial devotion was never to serve any practical purpose. An

anonymous note at the top of the file records that on the

representations of George II., King of England, communicated to his

brother-in-law, Frederick I. of Prussia through the British Minister,

the rehabilitation suit was never begun. The English King observed to

his sister, not without truth, that every piece of evidence disproving

their mother's guilt only established their father's.

The submissive Prussian Queen yielded to the force of this political

argument. The file, a monument of futile industry, after various

wanderings recorded in the note I have mentioned, ended by falling in

1783 into the hands of the Grand Duchess Charlotte-Augusta of

Lautenburg, niece of the reigning sovereign. It was this very file that

I had the good fortune to discover among the uncatalogued manuscripts in

the ducal library at the end of January, 1914. From the original notes

of the cross-examination of Fräulein von Knesebeck, Sophie-Dorothea's

confidante, to the record of Countess von Platen's confession,[4] had

before me everything required to reconstruct the story of the mysterious

Herrenhausen drama. In the casual manner of historians in dealing with

uncatalogued manuscripts I carried off to the privacy of my room the six

packets containing the whole melancholy story.

What a pageant of love and chivalry, crime and passion, grandeur, life

and death, was unrolled for me in its musty pages and clerkly script in

divers tongues! At night, when the castle was asleep, I pulled my table

up to my glowing log fire and worked in a kind of burning frenzy. Here I

touched history, live history, not the poor second or third hand

imitation which was doled out to us, according to syllabus, from the

Sorbonne Library. I will admit, I must admit, that the fumes of romance

mingled with the soulless passion for knowledge that seized my very

being. The Court of Hanover danced before my eyes, fantastic and

brutal--Ernest-Augustus, the Silenus of politics; George-Louis, the

narrow-minded profligate; Countess von Platen, the fearsome Messalina,

beautiful and winning notwithstanding; Königsmark, the swarthy

adventurer in his blood-stained doublet of pink and gold; pure-souled

Sophie-Dorothea, fair and slender in her wedding gown of silver brocade.

Silver, did I say? _There_ spoke the historian, the maker of books. But

oh! how much fairer, how much nearer, I imagined her in another gown, a

gown fresh in my mind! A gown of green velvet!

Winter was almost over, already yielding to the spring. I had opened my

window to help my fire to draw, and through it the air wafted in with

the magic touch of living breath. Through the darkness I felt the

presence of the black trees, their bare branches quivering with the

promise of life.

Several times, my friend, my dear friend--when death hovers overhead why

should I not confess those follies which are the price and glory of life

for men like ourselves?--under the spell of that old story of a gallant,

murdered lover and a fair dead Queen, and impelled by an instinct the

sureness of which Fate was in due course to reveal, I pushed open the

door of my room with a beating heart. The corridor was dark. The old

staircase creaked beneath my steps. Often in the great hall I had seen

the lantern of the sleeping watchman. What on earth should I have said,

had I been challenged?

The open postern exposed a great steel blue vault in the middle of which

mysterious Cassiopeia seemed to shiver. I went out, crossing the

moon-bathed lawns, hiding in the shadows of the yews. A light shone in

the centre wing of the palace. The Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus must be

a late worker! All was dark in the left wing, but when I reached the end

of the building and pressed myself against the wall I knew that here,

too, there were some who kept late hours.

Spring was not yet with us, but one felt that the song of the

nightingale would soon be heard. Bright and spearlike, a ray of light

spanned the gravel path, emanating from another window dark with heavy

hangings and curtains.

The nightingale was not yet singing in the French park, embedded in the

heart of that Germany whither Fate had led me. But behind that window a

poignant long-drawn wail, interrupted at intervals by maddening silences

that made my nerves quiver with apprehension, came slowly and softly

from the silent palace straight to my heart. For Fräulein von

Graffenfried was playing Schumann's most plaintive berceuses to her

mistress on her violin.

[Footnote 2: _Secret History of the Duchess of Hanover_, published in

London in 1732, without the author's name but attributed to Baron von

Bielefeld, _chargé d'affaires_ of the Court of Prussia at Hanover. For

this and later references I have amplified Vignerte's particulars with

the aid of Blaze de Bury's articles, which appeared first in the _Revue

des Deux Mondes_ and were collected into one volume, the "_Episode de

l'Histoire du Hanovre, Les Königsmark_," in 1855.]

[Footnote 3: Blaze de Bury: "_Episode de l'Histoire du Hanovre_." Notes

and evidence, p. 378.]

[Footnote 4: A duplicate in manuscript of this confession, entitled

"_Funeral Oration of Countess C. E. von Platen_," may be seen in the

archives of Vienna.]

V

_PETERMANN'S MITTHEILUNGEN_ is the most exhaustive. And also it must be

confessed the best, geographical work in the world. Our _Annales de

Géographie_ is only a feeble reflection of it. The Russians have an

excellent geographer, Woïkow. We have Vidal de la Blache, whose preface

to Lavisse's _Histoire de France_ is a masterpiece. But these are only

fragments and do not cover the whole ground. The astonishing feature of

_Petermann's Mittheilungen_ is its universality. My tutors at the

Sorbonne--I won't mention names as it would hardly be kind to them at

the present moment--have told me hundreds of times that no serious

geographical work could be attempted without the assistance of this

powerful machine.

I will not exaggerate either the scope or value of the lessons I gave my

pupil by having you imagine that I never prepared _one_ without

consulting the _Mittheilungen_. But I can assure you that whenever it

was necessary to emphasize some particular point I never failed to

fortify myself by reference to the great work.

Accordingly I had recourse to it when occasion arose to instruct Duke

Joachim on a question which was indeed a topic of the hour--the question

of the Cameroons and the recent German acquisitions in the Congo. It was

just two years since the Cambon-Kiderlen-Wächter conversations had

resulted in an agreement which gave Germany the famous "Duck's bill" and

Togoland. It, therefore, seemed to me a natural proceeding to dwell at

some length on the region which had been the cause of the Kaiser's

famous bang on the diplomatic table.

I shall never forget that day--Monday, March 2nd--nearly eight months

ago now.

I first ran through the Table of Contents of the _Mittheilungen_ in

order to look up the references and authorship of the six articles on

the Cameroons and the Congo. The second I came across was the work of

Professor Heidschütz, of Berlin University, describing the means of

access (natural and artificial) to this territory.

I carried the appropriate volume to the library table and began to make

some notes. As I was opening the book at the page of the article I

wanted, a piece of paper fell out. It was a sheet, folded in four and

already yellow with age, and the writing on it was large, thick and

free. It was German in Latin characters. No signature. Even without that

writing to help me I had immediately guessed what was its subject and

who had written it.

It contained the complete plan of a journey in one of the remotest parts

of the Congo, along the famous, or, rather, notorious, river Sangha. The

routes were carefully drawn up, with the assistance of the information

given in Professor Heidschütz's article, which, as I expected, was the

very last word on these regions. All practicable tracks, fords, and

resources available to the explorer of the country--from the moment he

left Libreville to the time of his return there--were noted. Each halt

was marked: Ouesso, two days--French post, water, porters: Manna, one

day--porters: Gléglé, on the N'Sagha, canoes, etc.

A fierce joy possessed me. Fate had delivered up to me the Grand Duke

Rudolph's own plan, in his own hand, for his scientific journey in the

very region where he was to meet with his death. Mine was not, I

realized, the triumph of the historian at the discovery of a document

throwing interesting light on German designs in the Congo, a document in

itself proof positive, in view of the rank and personality of the

explorer, that the Agadir _coup_ was premeditated. What cared I for

dryasdust History at that moment? In a flash I realized that pique had

been the motive for all my labours since that famous occasion when the

Grand Duchess had insulted me before the whole world!

If you would know the nature of the emotions that convulsed me as I

scrutinized the precious document I must tell you how my imagination had

been at work since that date. I had tried in vain to hate the Grand

Duchess. I could not do so. The effort only had the effect of sharpening

my desire to approach her, claim her notice, convince her that my end in

life was to devote myself to her service.

Devote myself! Good God, what on earth could have led me to think that

this dazzling, distant goddess might need my humble devotion?...

It was here, my friend, that my imagination led me on. To tell the truth

it certainly had something to build upon. You don't suppose that during

my long, lonely nights I had forgotten the confidences of a man of

Professor Thierry's standing? Quite the reverse. What wealth of meaning

had I not read into them? In a vague way I felt myself in an atmosphere

of mystery. I felt, just as I feel you now at my side in the dark, that

some tragedy was at the bottom of the presentiments of evil that flooded

my mind from time to time. My work and the nights devoted to the tragic

story of Königsmark had only aggravated my apprehension. All moonshine,

you will say; the diseased imaginings of a brain excited by work in

solitude, and, perhaps, a stronger emotion. You might have some reason

for thinking so if events had not abundantly justified my excitement.

Whatever the cause, my friend, even before I discovered the Grand Duke's

plan I had pieced together a story which satisfied my notions. I

imagined the Grand Duke Frederick-Augustus, correct and kind as he

always was towards me, as the executioner of his wife, that adorable

Grand Duchess. You see beauty made me fundamentally unjust. It made me

attribute imaginary wickedness to the man who, obviously, had many

virtues and was, in any case, the author of my present prosperity, while

I raised a monument in my mind to the woman who had once held me up to

public scorn and subsequently seemed to ignore my existence whenever I

had been thrown in her way. In my lucid moments I would reflect that

there was little of the martyr about the cold, haughty creature who

spent her nights listening to her Melusine's violin and her days on

horseback, hunting with her miserable red Hussar! That Hagen.... Wasn't

it plain as a pikestaff that it was the Grand Duke who deserved pity and

affection!... I should never have had his patience!

Useless sedatives. Vain strivings to forget. A moment later, back among

my fantastic imaginings I pictured Aurora of Lautenburg turning to her

fiery mount, hunting, music--anything to assuage her grief at the loss

of her first husband, that handsome, gallant husband who had loved her,

whom she still loved, no doubt.... And the jealousy born of these

reveries made me cherish them all the more.

Many conversations had failed to convince me of heir lack of substance.

It was useless for Frau von Wendel, with her sullen hatred of the Grand

Duchess, to sigh out tales of poor, dear Grand Duke Rudolph, who had

been so unhappy. I ruthlessly cleared everything from my path that

seemed to threaten the integrity of my fantastic fabrications.

You can call me a lunatic. But assuming I was one, you can imagine the

frenzy with which I put back the volume of the _Mittheilungen_, thrust

my precious sheet into my case and went up to my room.

Open, Sesame! I had now in my possession the mysterious key which would

open the way to the Grand Duchess's presence, and enable me to compel

her regard. "When she sees these lines," I thought, "in the handwriting

of a beloved husband, she will know that he who brings them to light and

gives them to her does not deserve the unworthy indifference she shows

him. Perhaps she will ask my pardon. Then I shall have compelling words

to stay the flow of regrets on those fair lips. She will only wonder the

more at her own past behaviour."

Twice I attempted to write a letter to accompany the document, and twice

I threw it into the fire. The first did not seem respectful enough. The

second was too full of the importance of my discovery. Eventually I hit

upon the simplest possible form of words:

MADAM,

By pure chance I have discovered a document which cannot fail to concern

your Highness. Permit me to enclose it with this note, in witness of

your humble servant's respectful devotion.

I had thought of entrusting my missive, with a couple of words of

explanation, to Fräulein von Graffenfried, who had never ceased to show

me a marked regard which was very flattering. But I was doomed to

disappointment, as Melusine had just gone out into Lautenburg, so I had

to be content with an old half-witted Russian waiting-woman. The ancient

dame took it, not without suspicion, and went off mumbling something

unintelligible.

I went back to my room at once and there my excitement oozed away. In

fact, I was soon practically taking myself to task for my action. What

purpose would it serve? Why was I mixing myself up in the affair? I

think I almost wished the old Russian even sillier than she seemed so

that she might lose my letter.

A step sounded in the corridor and there was a knock at the door. Ludwig

entered.

"Excuse me, Herr Professor. The Herr Professor has been sent for."

Stepping aside he ushered in a lackey. I thought I should collapse when

I saw the blue and gold livery of the Grand Duchess.

"Will the Herr Professor kindly come with me?" said the man.

Stunned by the almost immediate effect of my action, I followed him,

even forgetting my hat. We cut across the park. Where was he taking me?

We reached and descended the slopes of the English garden. Soon we were

among the willows by the Melna, flushed with the ruddy glow of dying

day.

A shot rang out from a clump of chestnut trees, and I thought I heard a

rustle in the branches as if a bird were falling.

"Will the Herr Professor please step this way?"

I was now in a kind of arbour. The Grand Duchess was standing with her

gun still smoking in her hand.

"Excuse me, monsieur. I am having a little thrush shooting," was all she

said.

And she nodded to her lackey to leave us.

* * * * * *

I was alone with the queen of my dreams. I had known that this moment

would come, but never imagined that it would find us in this leafy

tunnel, which I had passed many a time in my walks, without suspecting

its existence.

For a few seconds she gazed at me in silence. My embarrassment was

absolutely indescribable. It was only later, much later, that I learned

how well it had served my cause. So nervous a visitor could hardly be an

enemy.

At length she spoke, and her voice was soft, so soft that I did not

recognize it.

"I am grateful, Monsieur Vignerte, for your communication. You were

right in thinking that any relic of the late Grand Duke Rudolph could

not be a matter of indifference to me. Will you tell me," she added,

"how this paper came into your possession?"

I told her the whole story of my discovery. There must have been a

wealth of emotion and candour in my words, for I felt she was touched.

"Monsieur," she said, and her words were gentleness itself, "if, as I

hope, we are to know each other better, you will, I feel sure, cease to

bear me any ill-will for what may have seemed unmannerly in my behaviour

towards you. No, don't protest. That behaviour was deliberate, monsieur.

Indifference in a woman is always feigned. You must believe that, to

understand me, certain factors are required which are far from being in

your possession."

Where was the pretty speech I had promised myself in reply to these

words, long foreseen?

"Are you always working, Monsieur Vignerte?" asked Aurora, with a smile

tinged with delicate irony.

"Madam!" I murmured, overcome.

"Oh! I have no intention of taking you from your exalted pupil, but I

cannot help remembering that when the Grand Duke brought you here, it

was with a kindly idea of lending you to me occasionally. I have only

myself to blame for not taking advantage of his forethought before."

My doubts as to whether she was serious or not nailed me, dumb, to the

spot.

"Do you play bridge?" she asked.

"Yes--a little," I stammered, blessing Kessel and old Colonel von

Wendel, to whom I owed this latest accomplishment.

"We--that is, Fräulein von Graffenfried, Lieutenant von Hagen and

I--play bridge every evening. You shall make a fourth. You will do us a

much greater service than you imagine," she added, smiling. "I need

hardly add that you must come when you like."

"I understand, too," she continued, "that you have some most interesting

French books. I do a certain amount of reading, and should be very glad

to become acquainted with them, providing I'm not robbing that good Frau

von Wendel."

I blushed atrociously.

"Very well, then," she said, noticing nothing. "You will come when you

like, Monsieur Vignerte; but if you will let me give you further proof

of my gratitude by making a request, may I say that I shall be happy to

see you in my boudoir this evening, about half-past nine."

I bowed and was about to withdraw when she beckoned me back.

"Monsieur," she said in low, grave tones, "of course, it is understood

that everything touching this is strictly between ourselves."

She indicated my letter, which she had just drawn from one pocket of her

black, full-skirted jacket.

I bowed again.

"This evening, then, Monsieur Vignerte, and if you would do me a last

kindness, please go out as quietly as you possibly can, so as not to

scare away the thrushes."

I returned to the palace by a circuitous route, along the Melna. A

kingfisher skimmed backwards and forwards over the darkening water. It

was of the same colour as the emerald I had just noticed on the white

finger of Aurora of Lautenburg-Detmold.

* * * * * *

The Grand Duchess's bridge-table was set in a curious little Louis

Quinze salon on the first floor. Two Bouchers, a Largillière and an

excellent Watteau were its best features. Flowers, masses of flowers,

everywhere.

Remembering that Hagen would be there, I had made a special point of not

arriving first. Indeed, it was a quarter to ten when I knocked at the

door of Aurora of Lautenburg.

It was Melusine who opened it.

"I'm very pleased to see you!" the charming creature murmured as she

took my hand. The Grand Duchess gave me a smile of welcome and beckoned

me to the table, at which she was already sitting with Hagen. I had an

impression that the red Hussar was in a thoroughly bad temper, and this

pleased me so much, that I lavished the most delicate attentions upon

him all the evening.

Aurora of Lautenburg was wearing a kind of black silk tunic, very

_décolleté_, with masses of gold braid and edged with chinchilla at

the neck and sleeves. A net of gold filigree confined her cloud of tawny

hair.

She played with careless assurance, nearly always winning, and never

missing a lead, and Melusine, too, played well. I made appalling

mistakes, but as luck would have it, calmly trumped my partner's tricks

and ended by winning. The thought that Hagen would several times have

thrown his cards in my face if it had not been for the Grand Duchess's

presence made me almost delirious with joy.

The first rubber came to an end as the clock struck eleven. The Grand

Duchess rose.

"Cards will ruin you, little man!" she said familiarly to Hagen. "I

haven't forgotten that you have General Hildenstein's inspection

tomorrow, and must be down by six in the morning. You needn't hesitate

to leave Melusine and myself alone," she added, "as Monsieur Vignerte

has kindly consented to keep us company. So you'd better go to bed."

With maternal solicitude she offered him his sword. He took it with a

fiendish glance at me, which I pretended not to see.

Melusine von Graffenfried smiled her eternal sphinx smile.

"Let us go to my room," said Aurora. "Monsieur Vignerte, don't forget

the books you have brought me."

* * * * * *

In accordance with the principles set forth in Edgar Allan Poe's

"Psychology of Furnishing," the Grand Duchess's room was elliptical. A

large mauve globe, set in the ceiling, shed a misty, shadowless light.

On the walls were prints of Burne-Jones, Constable and Gustave Moreau.

The room was full of the three things I love most--flowers, rugs and

precious stones. Flowers invaded every corner, and it was quite five

minutes before I got used to their overpowering scent. Then the soothing

fragrance possessed me, and I was almost able to distinguish between

them. Roses and lilies, of course, predominated, though merely as a

glorious framework in which the riches of the Tcherna and the Caucasus

were exhibited in bewildering profusion. Against the walls were massed

the mullein of Mongolia, with their great spikes of flowers nearly a

yard long. The musky pink centaury swarmed on every table. Purple

passion-flowers, the spring marvel of Aral's desolate shores, tuberoses

from Erivan, crimson scabious, monster carnations of every hue, linaria

and love-lies-bleeding, balsam and nigella, primroses of Kasbeck, huge

red moonflowers from the defiles of Daried, the everlasting-flower of

Colchis, once the refuge of the mythical green bird--all these flowers,

known or unknown among us, turned that cool room into the haunt of

eternal spring.

The sweet-smelling irises, of a deep violet hue approaching black,

almost held me spellbound. The Grand Duchess noticed this and smiled.

"Those are what I love best. They are brothers to those I used to gather

in my childhood by the banks of the Volga."

She sat down on the great, low bed, with its two polar-bear skins for a

cover, and took off the net which confined her hair. Her tawny mane fell

out over the white rugs. At her feet Melusine, stretched on a

tiger-skin, with her arm on the great beast's head, toyed with a kind of

guzla from which she drew wavering, plaintive sounds.

The Grand Duchess took off her jewels, one by one, and put them on

little side-tables about the bed. On a chest, with a top of green onyx

and painted like a Persian cabinet, I noticed the barbaric tiara she had

worn at the fête of the 7th Hussars. By it was another, even heavier

one, in sapphires.

The floor was strewn with rugs on which little red and green roses from

Armenia swarmed like scarabs and ladybirds. A long necklace of amber and

turquoise, strung chaplet-wise, hung from the head of the bed, and above

it was a dark little niche where a burning lamp showed up a blue and

gold ikon.

Two large silver bowls, gloriously chased, stood near the Grand Duchess.

One was full of petals, the other of uncut jewels. In this she plunged

her hand, and as fine sand slips through the fingers, she let fall a

smooth bright rain of pearls and corundum, chalcedonies and beryls,

sardonyx and peridots.

O Margravine of Lautenburg, as you reclined there before me, you were

once more the Tartar princess, the fay of the East, the peri of the

Volga's mystic waters.

* * * * * *

She asked me to tell her the circumstances which had brought me to

Lautenburg, She had heard some of the details from Marçais, but from

the smile with which she told me this I had no difficulty in guessing

her opinion of that diplomatist's perspicacity.

It was plain that she wanted to know my story, and I met her wishes with

straightforward simplicity. Towards the end, as I felt her interested

and friendly, I could not help giving her a moving picture of the

distress our first meeting had caused me, I who had no sooner set eyes

on her than my sole idea in life had been to gain her regard.

Melusine von Graffenfried nodded approval, closing her eyes as she blew

rings from her cigarette to the ceiling.

"Please let us forget all that, Monsieur Vignerte," said the Grand

Duchess. "Give me your hand." Then, turning to Melusine, she spoke in

Russian, not knowing that I had a smattering of her native tongue.

"It's no good relying on him for my admission to the _Kirchhaus_."

Fräulein von Graffenfried replied with a shake of the head, which might

be interpreted as "Didn't I say so?"

"Melusine," said the Grand Duchess, "light the samovar."

While the girl arranged the teacups round the heavy, humming tower of

burnished copper, Aurora rose from the bed and opened a small

secretaire. She beckoned me to her.

"Do you know that writing?" she asked, holding out a letter.

I examined the paper. I had never seen the writing in question.

"It is the hand of the late Grand Duke Rudolph," she said simply.

My surprise grew to amazement. She could not restrain a smile.

"But, excuse me, madame. I don't understand. Then whose is the document

I sent you, to which I owe ..."

"Don't get excited; keep calm, Monsieur Vignerte. The paper to which you

owe my regard--nay, my friendship--was not written by my husband, the

late Grand Duke. But it is not without its value for me. It may even

have a greater value."

As she spoke she unfolded the document "I see there a name," she said.

"Sangha. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes," I answered. "I found out this morning. It is a miserable village

in the Cameroons--the last German post, ten leagues from Fort Flatters,

the first French post."

"That's the place," she added, "and you don't seem to know that it was

in that very village that the Grand Duke Rudolph died of sunstroke on

the 10th of May, 1911. He is buried there. Now you will realize my

feelings on seeing in the list of projected stages of his journey the

name of the place where he was to stay for ever."

"But whose is this list, then? Who drew it up?"

"A friend," replied the Grand Duchess, "the Grand Duke's faithful

companion. The same man who saved his life twice in the Congo. The same

who stayed with him to the end, and rendered him the last services,

though he was unable to save him from the fell malady."

"What was his name?" I asked.

"Baron Ulrich von Boose."

"Boose!" I cried. "So it was Boose!"

The Grand Duchess turned rather pale and drew herself up to her full

height. Melusine, at her feet, had stopped playing the guitar, which was

lying on the floor.

"What do you mean, monsieur?" said Aurora of Lautenburg. "Please explain

yourself."

I had already recovered myself somewhat, and was vaguely conscious of my

stupidity. I wanted to turn the conversation, but the Grand Duchess was

not to be put off.

"Do you know Baron von Boose?"

"Excuse me, madame," I stammered. "I don't really know whether I ought,

whether I can ..."

"What oughtn't you to say? What can't you say?"

I cursed my clumsy and premature exclamation, which looked like

compromising in one second two months of patient approach. Thoroughly

alarmed, and grasping at a straw, my eyes fastened on Melusine.

The Grand Duchess seemed to doubt the meaning of that look.

"Monsieur," she said, "Fräulein von Graffenfried is my friend, and you

must know that I have no secrets from those I have once called by that

name. You can speak freely before her. Indeed, I ask you to."

There was only one way out of the impasse. Stammering in the approved

manner of those with nothing definite to say, I told her as well as I

could about my conversation with Professor Thierry in the course of

which I had first heard the name of Baron von Boose.

Aurora of Lautenburg's forehead showed a wrinkle.

"I understand," she murmured at length, "or, rather, I think I

understand, in spite of the intentional reservations in your story."

She reflected a moment, then recovered her wonted calm and said:

"This proves, monsieur, how much one should distrust hasty conclusions.

I do not know where your Professor Thierry went for the story with which

he has stuffed your head. If, as you say, he is a conscientious

historian, I think he would have acted less precipitately if he had been

in possession of this--and this."

She handed me the letter I had just seen and with it another.

"These," she explained, "are two of the last letters written to me from

the Congo by the Grand Duke Rudolph. In the first he tells me how he was

saved by Ulrich von Boose from a buffalo which had killed his horse; in

the second, how this same Boose rescued him from five or six natives who

would have given him a bad time."

She looked at me with a smile while I read the passages she indicated.

I bowed, feeling somewhat sheepish.

Melusine had just filled the cups and we drank some very strong tea, in

which pieces of citron-peel floated. Then I kissed the Grand Duchess's

hand and clasped Melusine's.

"Au revoir till tomorrow, _ami_," said Aurora.

I went back through the park to my room, not without noticing, as I went

out, a shadow which had more than a suggestion of Lieutenant von Hagen

about it.

A shot, then another, rang out through the clear, empty night. We

listened. Nothing followed.

Vignerte shrugged his shoulders.

"Some sentry with the creeps."

"Lend me your torch," he said.

He turned on the light and held out two pieces of paper.

"What are they?" I asked.

"The first," he replied, "is a letter addressed to Aurora of Lautenburg

by the Grand Duke Rudolph. This other is the document drawn up by Boose,

which, as I have told you, secured my restoration to the Grand Duchess's

favour. It is as well," he added, "that you should not think you are

dreaming as you listen to my story. Try a little contact with reality."

I scanned the two documents eagerly, one covered with Boose's strong,

vigorous writing, the other adorned with those long feminine characters

which indicate a temperament more prone to reflection than action. I was

deeply moved by this letter of the German Grand Duke, who now rested

beyond the seas in the hot clay of the Congo, between the glowing

boundaries of the tropics. Mere contact with it conjured up a

startlingly clear vision of her to whom it was written. Aurora of

Lautenburg stood before us. I felt as if I had known her for ages.

Vignerte turned off the light and the rectangle of night sky reappeared.

I handed back the papers. He continued.

Brunetière, speaking of the _Lettres de Dupuis et de Colonet_, says

that they show less actual wit than a striving after wit. And that is

more or less true of all Musset's work. Reverse that saying, and you

have the best possible description of the Grand Duchess's conversation.

That proud woman was always aptness itself. She was an exceptional

being, and consequently what she said had always a quality of its own.

Her judgments were severe, perhaps, but never pretentious or bookish.

She avoided the commonplace as the cat avoids water.

I had no idea how much she knew or what she liked, so the three books I

took her that evening were _Le Voyage du Condotière_, _Les

Eblouissements_, _Les Evocations_.

Next morning she gave me them back.

"I've read them all," she said, "but your selection was not a bad one. I

see you like poetry."

Several books lay on a sofa. She picked one up and handed it to me.

"It is the _Caucasian Review_, which is published at Tiflis, and there

is more beauty in these rude pages and simple tales of travel in

unforgettable lands than in most of your modern poets. This is the rare

spring to which the poets of tomorrow will come to drink."

She continued:

"Shakespeare has been dead three centuries, and the haunts of Macbeth

are now treeless and a waste of factories. In Spain Don Quixote has been

succeeded by a horde of commercial travellers from here. In Italy

Carducci is a kind of half-witted Hugo. Like Switzerland, your romantic

countries are now the hunting-grounds of tourists. There are turnstiles

at the bottom of all your peaks.

"Suarès, whose book you lent me, felt all this, and surpasses himself

when speaking of our Dostoevsky. He ought to come, if only for a short

time, to our gorges of Dariel. I am quite sure he would prefer them to

those of the Ebro and Douro, of which you see pictures in every station.

"There is no doubt that Madame de Noailles is your greatest poet. But

why insist on calling her Greek! She is no more Greek than the Ariadne

of the Indian Dionysus or the Circassian Medea. All that is best in her

she owes to Armenia and Persia, our countries. Greek indeed! How silly

they are! Haven't you ever seen her? I once lunched with her at Evian. I

can tell you I took a great fancy to her. She's lovely and malicious,

but honestly she is not Greek at all. At home we have a species of bird

that you call jackdaw. It is very wild, flies high and has a vicious

peck. Its plumage is blue and black, and it is strong, though slight.

Your Madame de Noailles is a Tartar jackdaw, not a fat, lazy Greek

dove."

"What about this?" I said, holding up Renée Vivian's volume of verse.

She kissed the book. "My words are too clumsy for her," she replied. "I

adore her."

I was almost drank with joy to hear the woman whom I admired to the

point of idolatry speak of things dearest to my heart in a setting which

satisfied my exotic tastes. I told her so in a few simple words--as one

always should.

I think she was touched, for she laid her hand on my shoulder and

murmured, I have forgotten in what language:

"Thou art kind and I love thee well, my comrade."

Turning to Melusine, she repeated the Russian phrase of the previous

evening:

"No, indeed, it's no good my relying on for my admission to the

_Kirchhaus_."

Then, resuming her old sprightly tone:

"I believe I called you 'thou' just now, _ami_. You mustn't mind that. I

mix all my dialects occasionally, and in my country we use 'thou' to

practically every one, from our cattle up to the Czar himself."

A long silence followed, broken only at rhythmic intervals by the weird

strains Melusine drew from her guzla.

Incense was burning in a bowl.

I began to turn over, without reading, the pages of a book which lay

open on a small table beside me.

"Do you like that?" Aurora asked.

"That" was the _Reisebilder_.

I told her I was a great lover of Heine.

"Now what I value most in a poet," she said, "is a certain quality of

soul. That is why I love Shelley and Lamartine, and dislike this Heine.

Oh, I know what you'll say, the Nordsee and the rest. No one knows my

debt to him better than I; but he's like Deutz, who sold your Duchesse

de Berry, and I always feel I want to offer him the tribute of my

admiration with a pair of tongs."

She took the book from me and looked through it.

I had no idea what time it was. Suddenly a whiff of air, with that sharp

nip in it that heralds the dawn, was wafted in through the open window

behind the curtains. The smoke of the incense trembled like a tottering

pillar.

Buried in the _Reisebilder_, the Grand Duchess had forgotten my

presence. Melusine put a finger on her smiling lips and took me out

without her mistress noticing that we had gone.

It was very cold outside. To the east the blue sky was undergoing a

magic change, slowly turning to violet, then green, then orange. I sat

down on a seat by the door beneath the Grand Duchess's window, indulging

in a kind of mournful ecstasy. For it was the very spot whither I had

come so many evenings solely in order to be near her.

Then, languid and monotonous, but pure as the icy waters of a mountain

stream, came the sound of a voice. The Grand Duchess was singing to the

accompaniment of Melusine's guzla. She was the very incarnation of

harmony, and her voice was, indeed, the voice of my dreams.

She was singing Ilse's romance, the best of the _Reisebilder_. And

because we had just been speaking of it together I seemed to be still

with her in her room:

ILSA

The Princess Ilsa am I named, my home dark Ilsen's rock;

Oh come within my castle gate; there we shall happy be.

My sunlit waves shall bring a balm to soothe thine aching

brow,

Thy deep-set griefs thou shalt forget, poor youth all sick with

care.

I'll kiss thee and I'll hold thee fast, as once I held and kissed

The Emperor Henry, my heart's love; ah me! He is no more.

The dead are dead; they only live who are alive today;

I still am fair and full of grace; my heart still smiles and

throbs.

My heart still smiles and throbs.... Come see within my

crystal halls

My maids and knights together dance, my squires right glad

at play.

There's rustling of their silken trains, the clink of golden

spurs,

My merry dwarfs their cymbals clash, their lutes and trumpets

sound,

But thee my foam-white arms shall clasp, as once they clasped

the King,

When with my hands I stopped his ears against the clarion's

call.

* * * * * *

I was in the middle of an ancient history lesson with my pupil when the

Grand Duke came in. He beckoned to us to sit down and told me not to

stop.

I had been speaking to Duke Joachim of Alexander's successors, from the

fighting of the Epigones in the streets of Babylon to the victory of

Cyropedeon, which established the dynasties of the Lagides and

Seleucides after the downfall of Lysimachus. I had been trying to bring

before the eyes of my young German prince the grand and tragic figures

of Eumenes, chief of the Argyraspides, Polysperschon, Antipates,

Antigone Gonates, and Demetrius Poliorcetes. He listened attentively,

taking notes with a docility which I should have preferred less

abject....

The Grand Duke had sat down, and was also listening. Hypnotized by his

grave, intellectual face, it was really to Frederick-Augustus, not the

dull-witted Joachim, that my words were addressed. He was my audience as

I closed with an attempt to show how the crumbling empires of the

Epigones were to facilitate the victory of centralizing Rome.

As at this point I began to show signs of embarrassment,

Frederick-Augustus broke in, with a smile:

"Don't let my presence embarrass you if you want to establish a parallel

between Rome and Prussia."

It was obviously difficult for me to emphasize, in front of him, the

dependence of the princes of the German Confederation on the King of

Prussia. I did so, however, and he approved.

"God grant that this dependence," he said, "like the dependence of the

powers allied to Rome, may mean the greatness of Germany and the peace

of the world."

I ended by giving my pupil a list of the books bearing on my lesson, and

mentioned that indispensable work, Droysen's "History of Hellenism."

"But excuse me, monsieur," said the Grand Duke, "is there no French work

which can be used instead of Droysen?"

Even at the Sorbonne I had never felt so ashamed to say that there was

not.

Eleven o'clock struck.

"Joachim," said the Grand Duke, "you can go. Please stay, Monsieur

Vignerte."

We were alone.

"Monsieur," he said in his fine but grave, indeed rather melancholy

voice, "you have hitherto had reason to think me sparing of compliments

which you must have considered your due. I have always had the bad habit

of waiting a long time before expressing opinions. The right moment has

now arrived, monsieur. Yesterday, unknown to you, your pupil was

examined by a Professor of Kiel University with little predilection for

French methods. This professor has had to confess himself astonished at

the results you have obtained."

He added, in a tone in which I detected a certain trace of bitterness:

"I know that the harvester deserves all the more praise when he has

obtained his harvest from poor soil. Allow me to address my thanks to

you today, and express the wish that the hospitality of Lautenburg may

be sufficiently attractive to keep you here until you have completed a

task so well begun."

"Your Highness's kindness overwhelms me, sir," I replied, deeply moved.